"Ascension" a Shadowrun Campaign Journal

[Kid Jake]

I am LOVING Big Bear.

And also seriously thinking about playing some Shadowrun.

He's made an appearance in almost every Shadowrun game I've GMed as the punch-drunk bar owner, and was one of the first characters I statted when I was learning the system, I thought it might be fun to finally see him involved a bit in this one.

You really should, it's a blast.

Me and McCrow from my M&M journal, along with a few other people, have been discussing putting together an SR game set in a maximum security prison for a while now, sort of a Strange Days meets the Shawshank Redemption type of thing. Maybe one of these days I'll get to do that writeup too.

[Earthwalker]

Once again thank you for this. Loving every post.

[Kid Jake]

So it's been WAY too long since my last journal entry, but I can say with absolute certainty that this hasn't been abandoned. The sessions have concluded and the story has a definite end, I've just been really lax with my writeup. Sorry 'bout that readers! I'm going to try to buckle down and finish writing this out by the end of the month, fingers crossed.

In the meantime, hope you enjoy.

Spoiler

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"Probably shouldn't have done that." Skinner says, brushing grey matter off his shoulder while Frank rifles through the pockets of the dead.

"I probably shouldn't do a lot of things." Frank replies, stopping what he's doing to fumble around with his flask with trembling fingers. The ork takes a long drink to steady his nerves. "Not like Ares can kill me twice though, right?"

"You'd be surprised...." Big Bear mutters sadly.

Ignoring that chipper piece of conversation, Frank snatches his comm and quickly dials his contact. "YarDog, this is Frank. No time to talk, no time to explain myself; get your ass over to my new office NOW."

"Frank...what?" YarDog mumbles groggily.

"NOW!" Frank reiterates, taking a second long drink from his flask. "Don't try to contact me. I'll get in touch with you in a few days, I want an account of EVERY man, woman, child, animal or vehicle that comes within a block of my place."

"Seriously Frank...." YarDog mutters.

"Seriously YarDog!" Frank barks into his mouthpiece. "Get this done and I'll double your usual fee and never call you again. Frag this up and your mother buries you by the weekend, you understand!?"

"Yeah Frank, yeah I got it...." YarDog stammers, an audible gulp in his voice.

Without another word Frank drops his comm onto the asphalt and brings his heavy heel down on it, shattering its delicate circuitry beyond repair. He moves to take another drink from his flask, to lessen the shake in his hands but discovers it to be empty.

"We need to get out of here, and something tells me that sooner is better than later." Frank says with a weary sigh.

Spoiler

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"Wake up!" a voice snaps, pain lurching through Frank's stomach from a sharp kick.

The ork's hand instinctively drops to his holster, despite the sleep clouding his eyes, only to find it missing.

"Woah, woah, woah there cowboy." Skinner says, holding out a box by way of a peace offering. "I got some things for you."

Frank sits up from his pallet on the floor groggily, realizing where he's at. The cramped space, the sharp mildewy smell of spilt liquor never cleaned; he's in the Bear's Den storage room. Reaching out and taking the box he discovers a couple changes of clothes along with his sidearms and a few personal effects from his apartment.

"How'd you get these?" he asks suspiciously.

Skinner just laughs and flops down next to him on the floor. "I make a living slipping past corp security and you wonder how I got past a Stuffer Shack deadbolt?"

"Fair point." Fank says with a shrug, going through his stuff. "See anybody while you were there?"

Skinner shakes his head. "Just that kid you called last night. Parked right in front of the door, looks like he's about to s*** himself." the runner says with a laugh. Then reaching into his pocket, he brings out a drek comm that looks about five years out of date. "Oh, got you this. The SIN won't fool anyone worth fooling, but it should let you buy soykaf at least."

"How much I owe you?" Frank asks.

Skinner shrugs. "Cost me about 1,500...but I can float that until you're settled."

Frank shakes his head. "I've still got my anonymous benefactor's credstick... Speaking of which, if I toss in a few more nuyen, you mind getting my car out of the shop?"

Skinner scoffs. "I look like your valet?"

"I've got people to see and I don't think it'll wait." Frank replies.

"Back on the case?" Skinner asks.

The aging ork just nods. "Somebody has to be.... Speaking of which, I need to find an elf. Pretty, young, blonde...."

Skinner laughs. "Don't we all?"

"Used to hang out with a bald kid covered in serpent tats and most likely a dwarf." Frank adds, ignoring the runner's commentary.

"Your mystery client?" Skinner asks, intrigued.

"Most likely." he agrees. "I might not be able to find her, but could you at least put out the word I'm looking for her?"

Skinner shrugs with a chuckle and effortlessly leaps to his feet. "Alright fine, fine, I'll get your car and send out the memo...but you fetch your own damned soykaf."

Spoiler

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Frank hails a cab outside the Den and repeatedly dials his contact Brad until he gets through.

"New number Frank?" Brad asks with a chuckle, "What's the matter man, trying to shake some clingy fraulein?"

"Something like that.." Frank mutters.

"Wait..." Brad says, with a laugh. "This says you're calling from some guy's comm named Peter Dinkman....? That doesn't sound like a real name Frank."

"No...it really doesn't." Frank replies irritably.

"Frank....why are you calling me from a comm tied to a fake SIN?" Brad asks, a little of the humor draining from his voice.

"Because I'm currently in the process of burning mine." Frank answers bluntly.

Brad stammers on the other end for a long moment, before loudly whispering "Why the frak are you burning your SIN Frank? What did you DO?"

"I've been accused of murdering a Knight Errant executive." Frank says wearily.

"Why would they accuse you of that?" Brad almost squeaks through clenched teeth.

"Probably because I shot him in the back of his head." Frank admits. "I'll admit that it wasn't as great of a plan as it seemed at the time...but he was in the middle of executing me for corporate espionage, so tempers were running a little hot."

For a moment or two, there's nothing but cursing on the other end of the line; but eventually Brad says "Professional rivalry aside Frank, you're a wanted man!"

"I know Brad, which is kind of why I called. I need information on that suspect I sent you...basically everything you've got." the aging orc explains. "You're the only one that can help me here."

"Is this....are you still working your case!?" Brad asks incredulously. "Don't you think that maybe the whole fugitive from justice thing might take priority here? "

"People are dying here Brad!" Frank shouts, loud enough that his cabby glances back nervously through the sound dampening partition. "Weekly, maybe daily, for who knows how long now and I'm the only one that seems to care!"

"When they find you, they're going to kill you Frank!" Brad nearly shouts himself. "There isn't some happy ending waiting for you at the end of this, no matter what else happens, just ARES goons waiting to gun you down in the street!"

"I know!" Frank barks. "I know...I just... There isn't anything I can do about that, so there's no point in dwelling on it. But this...maybe I can actually do some good first. Like in the old days, before I turned into....whatever the hell I am now. You remember those days Brad? Because I barely do...."

"Frank, you're not..." Brad starts, but is cut off.

"Help me out Brad, one last time and I'll lose your number. I swear I won't drag you down with my swan song." Frank pleads. "But this HAS to be done, and nobody else is going to do it."

There's a long pause before Brad audibly sighs. "Your John Doe was an orderly out of Seattle Downtown, was reported missing about two years ago by his wife but we never found a lead in his disappearance..."

Brad fills in Frank on the details of his mystery corpse and sends him the orderlies files for later perusing.

"This is a long shot, and a lot to ask, but we know he's not working alone." Frank says, "Is there any way you can get me a list of other missing persons around that time?"

"Frank, do you have any idea..." Brad starts.

"Just focus on three months before or after our suspect's disappearance." Frank insists. "I'm serious Brad, this is the last you'll hear from me."

"Fine..." Brad replies sadly. "I'll get you a list sometime tonight."

"Thanks Brad." Frank says softly.

"Goodbye Frank." Brad responds.

The line goes dead as the longtime friends part ways for the last time.

Spoiler

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It's somewhere around noon when Frank steps inside Simmons' run down clinic to find the street doc performing his weekly hose down of the facilities.

Simmons barely glances up from his cleaning as Frank enters his shop. "You look like hell Mr Rater...but you seem to be in one piece for a change. What do you want?"

"Always the stunning conversationalist Simmons." Frank replies, resisting the urge to add that he feels worse than he looks. "I need a look at our killer."

Simmons stops in his tracks. "That's...not possible Frank."

Frank groans in irritation.

"You told me to sell him for scrap," Simmons replies, almost defensively. "Which was about all he was good for."

"I know..." Frank growls and then absently repeats, "I know."

"The killings haven't stopped?" Simmons asks with the same air one might use to discuss the weather.

Frank just shakes his head. "No. In fact I'm not even sure that this guy was connected to the original murders at all..."

"So you're hoping he had his accomplice's name tattooed on his bicep perhaps?" Simmons asks wryly.

"Something like that." Frank says with a sigh. "Or maybe get a serial number off his ware."

"Oh...well I've still got most of that on hand." Simmons replies.

Frank's head snaps around with interest. "I thought you'd have had an easier time moving that than him."

Simmons shrugs. "Ghouls have to eat Mr Rater, but I can't think of anybody with a burning need for a shoddy, homemade BTL rig."

"BTL?" Frank asks.

The street doc just nods and pulls a metal tray out of one of his drawers that has a number of long, thin metal wires attached to a box the size of a silver dollar. "I found the cause of the scars on the old man. Somebody laced his nerve endings with a....bizarre simsense adaptor. Shoddy, ineffecient design."

"Isn't simsense usually limited to headware?" Frank asks, "Why go to the trouble of all these extra connections?"

"Because perhaps whomever installed this, just isn't good at what he does?" Simmons suggests patronizingly.

"Helpful." Frank replies irritably. "Bag this drek up for me. I've got places to be."

[Gray Mage]

Good to see you're back.

[NRSASD]

Just found this campaign log and I'm really enjoying. My next runner's favorite trid show is going to be "Frank Rater, Orcish PI". Thank you for sharing this with us and I look forward to the conclusion!

P.S. Big Bear is fantastic!

[Kid Jake]

Good to see you're back.

It's good to be back, I can't believe I lost track of so much time.

Just found this campaign log and I'm really enjoying. My next runner's favorite trid show is going to be "Frank Rater, Orcish PI". Thank you for sharing this with us and I look forward to the conclusion!

P.S. Big Bear is fantastic!

Glad you're enjoying it! But wouldn't that be a little racist in universe? Kinda like 'The Adventures of Roger Murtaugh: Black Cop!'



With a little luck, I'll have the next session typed up in the next couple of days.

[NRSASD]

Hahahaha you're right. Didn't even think of that :p

[Kid Jake]

Took me a little longer to get this typed up than I figured it would, but it's finally done. Hopefully I'll get another one out by next week, but in the meantime; I hope you guys enjoy!

Spoiler

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"Be careful what you ask for..." Frank mutters to himself as he huddles in his little corner of the Bear's Den storeroom going over the list of missing persons he'd asked as a final favor from his former friend and partner. The list contained more than three hundred names, none of which carried the helpful "Accessory to Murder" tag that some small part of him was secretly hoping to find.

He idly stuffs a handful of greasy fries from his takeout burger tray into his mouth as he scans the files and decides to to narrow things down. He starts by eliminating all the cases where the person was found, in one piece or otherwise, which removes a mere seventy names from his list. A disheartening figure in retrospect and perhaps the reason his company no longer has the city's contract, he admits to himself bitterly.

Next he eliminates anyone under the age of 16, which knocks another hundred and some names off his list. Of the 346 original names, only 154 remain. Still more leads than he fills comfortable with pursuing by himself; but it's a start.

Grasping at straws, Frank decides to discount anyone with a history of obvious mental illness or addiction. Likewise, he erases the names of anyone with a history of repeat criminal offenses, massive outstanding debt or habitual unemployment. Then, seeing as the crime didn't seem to have a sexual element, he removes the names of young women; simply assuming that they had become victims of a different kind of predator.

When it's all said and done, he's been at it for more than six hours and he's managed to whittle his prospects down to just under forty individuals; which he decides to divide up by district. He ends up with:
Auburn 3
Bellevue 5
Seattle Downton 7
Everett 3
Puyallup 5
Redmond 10
Renton 4
Snohomish 1
Tacoma 1

Which strikes him as...odd.

Discounting Puyallup and Redmond, which Frank just naturally assumed would play host to most of his disappearances, most of his list are from the nicer districts. Places where a crime wouldn't just be ignored.... He also notes that his orderly was supposed to have worked for a hospital Downtown; maybe a coincidence, but maybe not.

Looking over his files, he notices that one of the missing women from Bellevue was a nurse. Interesting....another possible link? Impossible to say without access to hospital records, which of course they aren't going to hand some unshaven ork off the street.

Keying his commlink, Frank says "Skinner, this is Frank. I know it's late, but I was hoping you could recommend some place to pick up a deck..."

Spoiler

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It's 9am and Frank yawns groggily outside of a 'pawn shop' called The Lost & Found. It claims to be open from 6-6, but after standing in the early morning cold for three hours; Frank is ready to call shenanigans.

It's about half past when a lanky elf with long, greasy hair and wearing a stained denim jacket shuffles down the sidewalk; sipping soykaf from a paper cup as he fumbles for his keycard.

"You own this place?" Frank asks gruffly.

"You know it chummer." the elf replies without looking up.

"You got a drek sense of time then, chummer." Frank growls back.

"Don't like it? Then go sell your drek somewhere else junkie." the pawnbroker shoots back sharply as the door opens.

"I'm here to buy omae, not peddle." Frank says, following the elf inside. "I need a deck."

The elf raises an eyebrow questioningly. "What kind?"

"I don't know." Frank says shrugging his shoulders. "I'm not good with that stuff. Boss told me to get the best one you had, money's no object."

The pawnbroker's eyes twinkle greedily. "Is that so...good stuff's in the back, you mind waiting?"

Frank nods. "I got nowhere to be."

The elf opens a second door leading through a bullet proof divider seperating the common junk from the register and the stuff actually worth stealing. Frank glances around the ill-sorted junk while tapping his fingers against his thigh impatiently.

After several more minutes of waiting, the elf comes back from the storeroom and sits down on the bulletproof side of the partition, holding a battered cyberdeck in his hands. "The Azteca 200. It's second hand obviously, but still a damned fine machine. I could let you have it for...let's say 100k. Money's no object...right?"

Frank peers through the partition at the deck. "Yeah...that's right. But I mean, that's a lot of nuyen to toss around at a place like this. Does that thing even work?"

The elf scoffs. "Of course it works."

Frank holds his hand out towards the exchange slot. "I'll have to check it out first. Boss would kill me if I dropped that kind of cash on a paper weight."

The elf smirks and hits a button, locking the front door and trapping Frank inside. He slips the deck into the slot and turns it over for inspection. "Be my guest."

Frank draws out a length of the deck's connected cable and jacks it into the data port at the base of his skull. He taps a couple of keys and an AR display immediately fills his vision.

Sweeping some junk out of his way, Frank takes a seat on a random table and turns the deck over in his hands. "How do you go hotsim?"

"That button there." the elf replies, pointing and rolling his eyes.

Frank taps the deck a few more times and shakes his head. "Doesn't work. How do you turn on the hotsim? It does have hotsim right?"

"Yes, it has hotsim." the elf barks back. "It's the third button right there on the side!"

Frank turns it over in his hands cluelessly. "What the hell are you talking about? I tried that! That's not it, how do you turn on hotsim? Or does this piece of junk not even have it?"

The elf irritably pops open the door and stomps across the room. "I told you, THIS fragging button right here turns on-"

The elf is interrupted by Frank's synthetic fist slams into his nose lightning fast. Blood pours from his broken nose as he's sprawled across the floor in a dazed stupor and he flops around like a stunned fish trying to regain his feet.

Frank calmly tears the elf's keycard from his jacket, lets himselfinto the bullet proof room and releases the front door's lock. The elf climbs to his feet just long enough to fall through a table of knock-off sims.

"Don't worry." Frank calls out over his shoulder as he walks out the door. "After I'm done with it, I'll make sure to get it back to it's real owner."

Spoiler

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Frank makes himself as comfortable as he can in the bathroom stall of a greasy diner just a few blocks away from The Bear's Den. He'd already placed his order and left 20 nuyen on his table, so wasn't expecting anyone to bother him any time soon.

Setting his up his stolen deck and jacking its data cable into his own port, he takes a deep breath and slips into hotsim; immediately going limp as his consciousness leaps from his body.

....

....

....

Frank gasps as his eyes open onto the swirling neon colors of the matrix, his mind reeling from the torrent of information suddenly flooding his brain.

Within just moments of orienting himself, Frank is looking up at the digital form of Seattle Downtown's Saint Maria's hospital. It's fuzzy and out of focus, which Frank realizes is because of the noise caused by its distance from his meat, so he slots a Signal Scrubber as one of his active programs; causing everything to come a little more into focus.

He reformats his deck, prioritising Sleaze, and quickly (and illegally) hacks his way into the local Seattle Grid, eliminating almost all of the remaining Noise with his stolen connection.

As the Host is a public hospital, it requires no special effort to enter. Inside, it actually looks like the hospital in question; only the nurses are unnaturally cheerful programs, designed to answer simple medical questions and make appointments as necessary.

He quickly extends his matrix perception, discovering new hosts within the hospital. The patient records appears as heavily protected as you'd imagine, but the employee records protections are rather lax by comparison.

Swiftly, Frank marks the employee records host and forces his way inside before switching to silent running to avoid detection. The matrix's swirling colors becomes somewhat muted and distant as Frank hides himself inside the new host.

Unlike the public portion of the hospital's host, the records room has no physical analogue. It appears as an endless stretch of file cabinets, stretching in all directions. A single green eye sits above it all, tirelessly searching for potential intruders.

Frank gets to work tracking down employee records from two years back, holding his breath out of instinct as the glowing light of the eye passes over his darkened form. With a sigh of relief, he continues his work as fast as he can.

Once the files are located Frank slaps a mark on them, cursing his luck as an alarm begins to sound and the eye begins glancing about erratically. An identical pair of burly orderlies appear and begin meandering around, arms outstretched as though they're just about to leap into action and snatch the intruder.

Frank panics and attempts to copy the files as they are, failing to notice the protections on them. The alarms seem to grow louder as the eye swings its attention towards the hapless private investigator and the security programs turn to follow suit.


Without hesitation Frank slots the Fork program into his deck and splits a Brute Force command between the IC, attempting to place 2 marks on each and spending a point of edge to increase his chances. Amazingly he succeeds on both.


The orderlies respond by firing blasts of light from their outstretched palms, Frank's neurons sing in pain but his Firewall defends against the worst of the attack. The host attempts to remove his marks from its IC and Frank watches as each has its marks reduced by one.

In response, Frank spams the Crash command; causing one of the orderlies to shatter into its base code and simply fade away. The other responds with a second attack, but Frank's firewall turns it away harmlessly and he fires a data spike in response, forcing the second IC to dissipate back into the host.

Frank reprioritizes his deck's attack over all else, while replacing his Fork program with Decryption. He manages to Brute Force two more marks onto the necessary files and, with a victorious whoop, cracks its rather basic protection just as another pair of orderlies materialize in front of him.

Rather than defend himself, Frank focuses on copying the files to his deck and grits his teeth against the pain as the security IC threatens to fry him from the inside out.

He almost breathes a sigh of relief as he receives the message that the files have been copied, but realizes that the IC has link-locked him with their attacks, making a simple log-off impossible.

Looking around in desperation Frank closes his eyes, grits his teeth and focuses every ounce of his willpower into grabbing his data cable in the real world and tearing it out of his skull.

---
---
---

Frank hits the filthy bathroom floor half a second after his deck bounces out of reach. He doesn't even have the chance to turn back towards the toilet before he's vomiting the churning contents of his stomach directly onto the grimy tiles between bouts of relieved laughter.

Spoiler

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His target in Bellevue goes much smoother and Frank's finished it up and taken a doggie bag back to his pallet in the Bear's Den within the hour.

To his surprise, there's quite a bit of of crossover between the nurse's hospital and his orderly's. More than two dozen doctors, nurses, technicians and EMTs worked for both of those locations in the same year. It gives him some place to start, but isn't as clear cut as he was hoping.

He decides to look into the missing nurse's background for a clue, but doesn't find much of anything to go on. She was fresh out of school, so had almost nothing to her name and had little family, none of which are in the city.

Frank curses, almost certain that this was a waste of time, when Skinner knocks on the door and informs him that the mechanic has brought his car back. The aged ork tosses the deck aside and rubs the exhaustion out of his eyes before stepping out into the bar.

The mechanic is a grimy ork with a shaved head, oil blackened skin and an obviously cybernetic right hand.

"You Rater?" the ork asks gruffly.

Frank nervously glances around the bar, but just nods. He'd already left his name with the ork's boss, so he couldn't very well deny it now. "Yeah...that's me."

With a nod, the ork holds out a cred reader. "Service order says you owe me 800 nuyen."

Frank curses inwardly, but accepts that it could've easily been a total loss. He digs into his pocket to search for his credstick, tossing the orderly's ware he'd received from Simmons onto the bar to get it out of his way.

"You want that installed, it'll be another 200." the mechanic says bluntly.

Frank's a little taken aback. "What installed?"

"The R.I.G." the ork replies, indicating the implant irritably. "Your interface there....I assume it's a custom job?"

Frank's jaw goes slack. "An interface...." he mutters, picking up the implant and turning it over in his hands. He quickly retrieves his credstick and slots it into the reader before ignoring the mechanic and rushing back to his room.

He quickly pulls up his list of missing people and spots exactly what he was looking for.

Barry Andrew, 38 years old, Troll. Owned and operated a machinist shop in Auburn until his unfortunate disappearance. A quick matrix search confirms that the shop is still owned by the Andrew family despite their patriarch's disappearance.

Of course, according to Lone Star's records Barry Andrew had no family.....

"Hey Big Bear," Frank says, buckling his gun to his waist and shouldering his way past the storeroom door. "I'm going out."

Spoiler

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It takes about four hours for Frank to make his way to his destination in Auburn, taking every back street and desrted alley he's become familiar with in all his years in the city to avoid cameras or prying eyes. His SIN and tags may be different, but his car and face are still very much the same and he's not taking any chances.

The machinist's shop is a four story structure on a tightly packed street in the industrial disctrict of Auburn. Even at this late hour, the noise and stench of the neighborhood is almost overwhelming...which makes his target's dormancy all the stranger.

Parking around the corner from his destination, Frank jogs to the door and looks it over. To his disappointment he finds that it's attached to an alarm system. Circling the building, he finds that the back door is also protected, so with a grunt of irritation he braces his foot against the wall, grabs hold of the corner drain pipe and hauls himself up. The corroded metal groans in protest and Frank alternates between cursing irritably and praying to whoever might be listening as he slowly shimmies his way up.

By the second floor the pipe's already started to loosen, but Frank pushes up even further. Inch by inch, second by second. Just as the pipe begins to screech and sway the ork lashes out with his cybernetic hand and grabs the edge of a window. His aging muscles groan in protest as he swings into position.

Under cursory inspection it doesn't appear that the third floor window is alarmed, but Frank doesn't have the time or energy for much more than that. Figuring that one way or another this window is where he's going at this point.

Holding himself up with his meat arm, he shatters the glass with his metallic hand and clears a path; sighing in relief at the lack of an alarm. Even the sound of breaking glass is lost in the sounds of the neighboring factories. With a grunt of effort Frank flips through the window and lands on his back on the dusty, darkened floor.

Quickly rolling to his feet, Frank draws his hand cannon in one hand and a small flashlight in the other; scanning the decrepit room with a practiced eye. Just a few machines having fallen into disuse. Nothing noteworthy. Certainly nothing worth scaling the building for.

Frank stops in his tracks and strains his ears, swearing he heard something but being unable to pinpoint what it was. He glances up at the top floor, but decides its probably a dud too. As quietly as he can he begins stalking down the length of the third floor until he reaches the stairs, where he stops again to take in the relative silence.


Slowly and methodically Frank searches the second floor, finding it just as deserted as the third. He finds nothing on the first either, although by now he's positive he hears a banging sound down below.

Continuing his search, Frank finds a locked door leading into the building's basement. It takes him a moment to bypass it, but otherwise does nothing to discourage his exploration. As the door swings open and Frank begins inching down, the sound of a large machine running becomes unmistakable; as does the sound of several feet shuffling close by on the other side of the wall.

With a deep breath to steady his nerves, Frank grips his gun and flashlight tightly and all but sprints around the corner and in the most intimidating baritone he can manage shouts "Hands up, right now!"

What greets him however almost makes his voice catch in his throat.

Three naked, almost skeletally emaciated figures that look equal parts flesh and machine are working a makeshift assembly line, but turn slowly in his direction at the sound of his voice. They're so heavily modified that Frank can't tell what gender or even race they once were. They have cheap, certainly second-hand cyberlimbs and large swathes of flesh simply stripped away with nothing done to replace it. They seem to be held together with staples and screws, whatever life once existed behind their eyes long since extinguished.

One of the creatures seems to almost hiss a wordless challenge as it lunges a step towards Frank and he responds blowing it's head off in shock. The other two respond with wordless screams of their own and rush the panicked ork. One has to shuffle all the way around the machine they're tending, but the other rushes Frank directly; wildly swinging steel tipped claws which Frank nimbly sidesteps, before bringing the butt of his pistol down on the back of the biodrone's head, all but caving the skull in.

While the first abomination reels, Frank fires at the second; blowing a hole through it's spine and sending it collapsing to the ground in a twitching heap. The first tries to take another swipe at him, but its brains are so scrambled from the pistol whip that it can barely lift its arms, let alone aim them. Frank roughly pushes it over and brings his shoe down on what's left of its skull until it stops moving.

Before he has a chance to celebrate, he notices three more shuffling and mutilated forms appear from around the corner about 15 meters away and hears the rumble of a prestigious bulk coming from behind a door to his immediate right.


Fearing what's behind the mystery door more than the feeble biodrones, Frank fires through the door and is rewarded with a roar of pain just before the door bursts off its hinges and the bulk of Barry Andrew charges through, most of his skull replaced with chrome but still somewhat recognizable as the owner of this shop.

"Mr Rater..." a monotone voice growls from Barry's mouth. "I thought I had been quite merciful thus far. Why are you still pursuing me?"

Frank keeps his gun trained on the troll, still watching the drones from the corner of his eye. With a shrug Frank replies "Hey, you gotta stay busy at my age; you know?"

"Charming, Mr Rater." the voice responds, as Frank notices that the troll's hands clench into dense fists. "I'll make sure those words are inscribed on your tombstone."

Frank throws himself out of the way of the troll's haymaker and vaults the makeshift assembly line to put a little distance between them. When he notices one of the drones attempting the same he fires his Warhawk into its chest; taking some small satisfaction in the way it collapses directly in the way of the others.

His satisfaction is shortlived however as what's left of Barry charges the conveyor belt and with bulging muscles the size of watermelons forces an entire section out of place to crush Frank with. Instinctively Frank drops his hands down (losing his gun in the process) to push back against it, but is instantly reminded that he's no match for a troll physically. Instead, he drops to his knees at the last second and as the troll's momentum embeds the hard steel into the concrete wall Frank springs forward with every ounce of his strength and drives his cybernetic hand into the troll's very unaugmented knee.

There's a sickening POP as Barry's leg bends the opposite way it's supposed to and Frank wraps his arms as far around the troll's ridiculously barrel-like chest as he can manage and basically suplexes him to the ground. The fall is soft enough that it causes no damage, but with one leg out of commission it's unlikely someone Barry's size is going to get back up on his own.

The remaining two drones leap onto Frank's now prone form, clawing at him vicously as Barry tries to hold him still. Frank tastes blood as his upper lip is shredded by a stray claw and responds by grabbing his backup pistol from his ankle holster, burying it in the stomach of the drone that clawed him and repeatedly pulling the trigger until it falls over. He does the last drone and then clocks Barry right in his cyberskull.

"How much of him is even still in there?!" Frank shouts angrilly.

Barry's mouth turns up in a wry smile. "Enough to be useful."


So Frank hits him again. Then again, and again..and again.

Once Barry's no longer smiling, Frank retrieves his Warhawk. He considers dropping Barry off at a hospital. After they removed the R.I.G. maybe they could get some real information out of him, find out who the killer is and where he's located. Why he's turning people into....this.

With shaky hands, Frank presses his gun into the sleeping troll's temple and mutters the sincerest apology he can. Because however bad he'd like to believe it could happen just like that, deep down he already knows that it's too late.

He doesn't stick around any longer than he has to. The presence of so much innocent blood makes him sick in a way he'd almost forgotten exists. But he sticks around long enough. Just long enough to find their chemicals listed as flammable, just long enough to douse the place, just long enough to make sure it was going to burn...

He'd like to think that he'd made a difference today. That he'd shut down production of the killer's R.I.G.s in time to save a life or two. But seeing the sheer number of fresh implants scattered around the facility during their fight...he knows that it too, is already too late to matter.

[Gray Mage]

Oh man, the plot thickens.

[SZbNAhL]

I can't believe there's been another KJ journal (KJournal?) around since June and it took me this long to notice it. I guess putting all the other ones into your signature lulled me into a false sense of security.

Regardless, this is excellent as always.

[Kid Jake]

Heh, thankya. I'm actually on the verge of running out of room in my signature, so I may have to find a new way of linking to my journals soon. Especially since I've got at least one more planned in the next month or so that might end up being a solo campaign with McCrow's player.

[Gray Mage]

Well, you can always post in the extended signature thread.